A re-usable shipping container is known which is upwardly open, basket-fashion, and which is designed to nest with a plurality of other such containers. Accordingly the sides of such a container are upwardly flared. This flare is necessary to prevent the containers from wedging together when nested. When the angle of flare is less than 15.degree., that is when the angle defined between two sides is less than 30.degree., it has been found that the containers often become stuck together and extremely difficult to separate. Furthermore when the amount of flare is insufficient the bases of adjacent nested-together containers are separated somewhat from each other so that, even though nested together, a plurality of such containers takes up an inordinate amount of space.
The disadvantage of such containers is that they are not very stable, having bases of reduced area. Furthermore such containers do not use the available space efficiently, as only near their tops are they of full width. Thus adjacent their bases the space taken up by such containers is relatively empty.